Walden
Traditionally, existentialism has been viewed as mostly twentieth-century
philosophical movement, and transcendentalism a nineteenth-century one. Not only
is Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Pond an existentialist work, but by examining the
similarities and interrelations between existentialist thought and Walden, we can
understand Thoreau’s purpose in writing it. Walden Pond is not a treatise on nature,
nor a manual on how to live one’s life, but rather a kind of how-to guide for those
…
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…Walden is meant to be an existentialist work, to instruct readers how to
find their own reality, truth, and fundamental existence. Thoreau requested that
"rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth" (228). Walden is
Thoreau’s gift to the world, and rather than love, money, or fame, he has given
humanity the methods by which to find its own individual truth, a philanthropic act
for which he will be forever remembered.
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